New strategies for diagnosis and treatment of Alzheimer's disease: monoclonal antibodies to beta-amyloid

Abstract

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that is the most common cause of dementia. Currently, there are about 46.8 million people with asthma in the world. It is believed that the number of patients with BA doubles almost every 20 years, and the issue of timely treatment and prolongation of the active life of these patients is becoming ever more acute. Nowdays only five drugs have been approved for the treatment of asthma, they include cholinesterase inhibitors and N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor antagonists (memantine). Unfortunately, their use provides tempora/y and incomplete symptomatic effect, can be accompanied by side effects and does not shw down the progression of asthma, therefore the development of drugs for more effective treatment of asthma is extremely important. Laboratory and clinical studies suggest that in the near future, AD-therapy will become more focused on disease modification and it is likely that AD will be successfully treated even before significant cognitive impairment develops, at the presymptom-atic or preclinical stages. The main therapeutic goal of these studies is the treatment of the pathological process (reduction of β-amyloidosis or reduction of the formation of neurofibrillaiy tangles) to prevent subsequent neurodegeneration and possible cognitive decline. Currently, despite all sorts of problems, immunotherapy with the introduction of monoclonal antibodies to β-amyloid is considered one of the most promising approaches to reducing the degree of neurodegeneration.